


Numbness

by Sketched_Ink



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketched_Ink/pseuds/Sketched_Ink
Summary: "You don't hear about the gangs that flood into Central at an ever increasing pace since you arrived. You don't get to see the wrecked businesses and homes and families and bodies that those people leave in their wake because your so busy dealing with the meta human bullshit you created to fight for a sense of purpose!". Len slammed his hand down onto the bedpost and was so fucking grateful his hand didn't slide right through. 
Len turned agonised eyes to face the oblivious Barry, "Then you go and blame yourself for something so fucking stupid as one death a thousand million light years away and remind me that you're a better person than I could ever hope to be".





	

The first thing Len noticed when he woke was the cold. 

It was all encompassing, from the tips of his fingers running all the way through his bones to his toes. The sort of too cold numbness that clings to your very soul when you've spent too long in frigid water.

Yet Len didn't feel in danger. It would be more accurate to say he didn't feel anything, really, just an acute awareness of cold and stillness.

After a few more moments of numbness, Len opened his eyes. As his lids slid back, he realised the stillness to himself was due to the odd lack of movement to his chest beneath his parka. The realisation that he wasn't breathing was less a feeling of panic and more a recognition to the strange absence of movement in an area that he logically knew had to move to keep him alive.

Staring up at a grey sky, slowly, experimentally, Len drew an empty breath into his lungs, but there was no smooth drag of oxygen into his lungs, no movement of warmth back over his tongue when he breathed out. No vitality. Len stopped trying.

He sat up, vaguely aware of the brush of grass against his palm when he set it down, but there was no real sensation, just an awareness. He was in a small area of grass, caged in by a rusted wire fence. A sign hung dismally against the metal, facing away from him and clacking softly in a breeze Len realised he couldn't feel. 

Private property, stay out.

How was this possible? He knew he shouldn't be here, he shouldn't be anywhere. The last thing he could remember was that blue explosion of time and space washing over him, erasing everything. It happened blissfully fast, but he could still recollect the feeling of his whole body simply ceasing to exist, the feel of the cold gun in his grasp dissolve away. There hasn't been any pain, thank god, but then again there hadn't been much of anything.

Len pulled himself to his feet.

He felt light, floaty, as if there was no substance to him anymore. Like if he leant backwards he'd slowly continue to fall back until he came to a soft rest on the ground again. The air, or whatever it was that occupied the still space around Len's body thickly parted as he tried to take a sluggish step forward, and he slid a few feet along the ground in the direction he wanted to go. 

It took a few moments for Len to adapt to the odd feeling of thick emptiness around him as he moved. Was this hell? This cold, empty mimicry of his city around him? Surely he should care, surely he should feel something at all in his predicament.

Len turned around, eyes traveling along the grass lapping the side of a building behind him. Up and over the grey expanse, it took him a second to realise that the concrete was actually the exterior to S.T.A.R Labs. 

He tried to walk over to the building, urged by a muffled impulse to make sure it was real, but as before when he tried to take a step he just slid over to the walls, stopping a foot away. Tentatively, Len extended his fingers towards the concrete, and they passed through it as if it wasn't there at all. He knew he should be panicking, that his mind should be racing ahead to try and comprehend the consequences of his situation, to gauge what to do next, a plan of action, but everything just felt so woolly.

He pulled his hand back from the wall, this time willing his muggy brain to feel the concrete. As his hand met the concrete, it spread out, acknowledging the walls. Len tried to slide his hand through again, tried to remember the way he did it before, and the wall parted again. He kept going, following his hand through, and suddenly he was inside. 

He was inside S.T.A.R Labs, in a corridor. Just as silent as outside, but as he made to move forward, something broke through the fog around his ears. Murmurs, a familiar talking from somewhere to his left. For the first time since his waking, Len actually felt something. The slow need to find the voice gripped him, and in that strange way of moving, he took slow steps and moved far faster that he should be able to, towards the noise, filled with a sensation akin to relief.

It took him to the cortex, the first place that actually felt familiar since he'd woken up. There, standing off to one side of the room, messing with a test tube in one hand, and talking into a phone with the other, was Barry Allen. Was he dreaming?

"Hello Barry", Len drawled, pulling his Captain Cold personal around him in an attempt at normalcy, at whatever normalcy he could muster like this. His voice was oddly muffled, like everything else, like there was cotton in his ears. 

No response. No hint of anything as Len's voice left the room, making it feel somehow even more silent than before as Barry continued to speak into his phone. Len moved so he was in front of the unmasked flash, standing barely a foot away from the younger man. Nothing. Barry's eyes slid over the space where Len was standing as if there was no one there. 

"Hello?", Len tried once again, trying to suppress the slow surge of panic and fear starting to seep up from his stomach, constricting his throat. Barry walked to the other side of the room.

"Sure Iris, I'll let you know as soon as we figure out what this meta can actually do. Stay safe", Barry smiled absently as Iris replied, and Len realised he wanted to see Lisa. He needed to see her. Maybe she'd be able to help him, maybe she'd be able to see him.

He turned to leave, to run away from whatever this was, when Caitlin Snow walked into the cortex and stared right at him. Len's eyes widened, and Caitlin was walking towards him, right at him. Len stood, frozen with the hope that she could see him. 

"Barry", She called out, something delicate in her eyes, "Barry the Waverider is back". She kept walking towards Len, right to where he thought she was going to stop. She didn't, she walked straight through him. 

Len gasped, dragging the non existent air into his lungs soundlessly as she passed through him. A strange hollowness that seemed to match with the coldness perfectly settled somewhere in the middle of his chest. 

Caitlin continued to talk behind him, and every now and then Barry's excited reply would return, but Len couldn't quite focus. He brought a frigid hand up to his chest, rested it over where he knew his skin was, and pushed in. His hand slid through his body effortlessly, right to his centre, meeting no resistance. Len pulled his hand back from his chest numbly and turned around. What was this? What was he? 

Barry and Caitlin began to leave the cortex, walking excitedly towards the exit, most likely towards the Wave Rider and the rest of his crew. Len found himself following them, embarrassed at the strength of his desperation to not be alone. He slid after them in that odd way that seemed to be the only system of movement in this existence.

He wanted to find Lisa, and if she heard the Waverider was back there would be only one place she'd go. 

*****

"Yes!", Barry, in full Flash gear, victory punched the air as the crew of the Waverider began to disembark. Len stood off to one side, waiting for them all to walk off the spaceship. They all looked so tired, but happy, the only one who didn't was Mick, wearing his default mask of indifference.

Barry peered behind the group when they'd all left the waverider, brows pulling together in confusion as the door shut and the engines fired up, "Hey, where's Snart?".

A ripple of pain moved through the group, the only one stoic enough to hide it being Mick. Maybe his expression was the only one already showing grief. 

No one spoke for a few moments, until the silence was suddenly broken by a wavering, aggressive voice from behind them.

"Yeah, where's Lenny?". 

Cisco, Caitlin and Barry turned around, confusion across their faces as Lisa stalked up to the crew of the Waverider. She stormed past everyone until she got to Mick, voice betraying her as she tried to sound brave, Lisa tried again, "Where is he, Mick?".

Len vaguely noted Barry's cautious step forward, but his eyes were fixed  
on Lisa. 

"Lis-", Len tried, voice too loud in his space, but no one looked over. His sister stood there, in front of Mick, beginning to tremble. Mick finally met her gaze, eyes soft in a way Len hadn't seen before,  
"I'm sorry Lisa", he raised a hand towards her.

"No", she slapped his hand down, "That's not possible- Lenny- Where is he, Mick?", her voice shook in that way it only did when she was going to cry, and Lisa never cried. Lisa was strong like Len. Mick slowly pulled her towards him, eyes hard as he held her tightly against his chest. Sobs began to wrack her frame, "You bastards", she pulled away from him, whirling around until her wet eyes focused on Barry. 

Fury fixed on one person, Lisa stalked towards Barry, the gold gun in her hand and extended towards him viciously, "This was you", she snarled, rage across her features as tears continued down her cheeks, "You were the one who forced Lenny to go, telling him all that bullshit about him needing to be better". Caitlin and Cisco tried to pull Barry out of Lisa's warpath, away from the dangerously whirring Gold gun, but Barry held fast, just standing there as Lisa stopped a barely a foot away from his face, gold gun glistening deadly in the evening light. 

Lisa's arm shook unsteadily a few centimetres away from Barry's face, before the fury faded into sharp sorrow, "This is your fault", she gasped out, gun dropping limply to her side, "He wanted to be better, you made him think he had to be better. This is on you, Flash", she spat, before turning away from them all and walking off. Mick silently followed her, ignoring everyone as he walked away.

The rest of the crew was silent, and it was Barry who spoke first.

"Where is he, then?". 

Len looked towards him oddly. There was something in his voice that almost sounded sad that Len had gone. Len hadn't considered that. Did the Flash's compassion extend to his enemies as well as his citizens? 

Stein was the one who replied, stepping forward sadly, "We couldn't bring him back. After the blast-", he cut himself off, eyes dropping to the floor, "There wasn't anything left".

Barry didn't say anything.

It was Palmer who stepped forward next, eyes lowered, his helmet cradled in front of his body, "He died for us, Barry. If he hadn't given his life, we wouldn't have made it out". Palmer looked up, "He died destroying the time stream. He gave us all a free, unchosen destiny. If any of us truly came back from that ship a hero, it was him".

Len watched them and wondered what they'd say if they knew he was there? Would they still say it was worth it if they knew what had happened to him? 

Was he going to be stuck like this forever?

Caitlin's voice quietly broke through the turmoil in Len's head, "Barry", she said softly, "It wasn't your fault".

Len watched Barry turn to her with a half hearted smile, "How can we guarantee that? We all know he'd started to change, would he really have gone along if I hadn't told him to be a better person?", Barry laughed, a tight sound Len hadn't ever heard come from the speedster's throat before, "I was the one who told him to be a hero".

Cisco stepped forward, resting a hand on Barry's arm, "Hey, man, that doesn't mean it's your fault. Don't do this again, please".

Barry stepped back, pulling away from Cisco and the group, "I'm heading off, guys", he quickly turned back to the crew of the Waverider, as if he'd forgotten they were there, who were standing in a sorrowful silence a few metres away, "Congrats, guys, enjoy your first night back, sorry I can't stick around. I've got to go". 

"Barry-", Caitlin tried, but Barry was already gone, speeding away in a flash of yellow lightning. 

Len stared after the kid with tight eyebrows. He might be dead, somehow existing in this world without actually being able to interact with it, but the kid had to be an idiot to blame himself. Len's teeth pulled back in a snarl. It was practically taking credit for Len's decision. He'd died to get back free will, to make his own decision and shape his own future, not for some haughty kid with a God complex. 

Before he quite knew what he was doing, Len was striding after Barry. Well, striding in that strange way that caused him to slide along the ground far faster than physics should allow. It wasn't Flash speeds, but it was very, very fast. Blocks swept past Len's peripheral vision until he skidded to a stop outside the West family home. 

Len was getting used to the strange muffled silence of this new existence, he walked up the stairs towards the Flash's home, carefully stepped through the hard wooden door into the threshold. The house glowed warmly, and Len was aware of the fact that he should be feeling the warmth seep into his hands and feet, should slowly begin to regain feelings in his extremities, but that never abstaining frozen quality wouldn't leave him. 

There was no one downstairs, the house quiet, so Len made his way upstairs. He hadn't really payed any attention to the Flash's family home before. Sure he'd had a good look downstairs, but the first floor felt far more personal, more like he was intruding on something private as he moved along. The staircase was adorned with smiling family photographs, snapshots of the West family life, a documentation of Barry's life spread out on the wall as he climbed. 

It started out with a few photos of a smiling Iris West who was quickly joined by a sullen Barry at about eleven or twelve, in a park and around the dinner table. As the photos continued Barry's expression slowly softened, leant away from that pained and downtrodden look that haunted the child in the earlier photos. At about fourteen or fifteen, the photos of Barry started to look happy, like he was finally settling into the family, and all the recent ones showed the beaming and optimistic unmasked Flash that Len was far more used to.

Len paused and glanced back to the earlier frames, a frown tightening his features, what did a child who was in such a brilliant position have any reason to look so sad about? It was downright ungrateful. Barry was one of the lucky ones. Len knew he'd been adopted, with a dead mother and a convicted father, but at least he'd been taken into a loving and supportive family. That wasn't Len's definition of rough. Len sneered, and continued up to the first floor.

Only one of the closed doorways had a sliver of light coming from underneath it, and he reached for the door handle only for his grip to slip right through. Steeling himself, Len slipped through the wood without opening it to find himself in what had to be the Flash's childhood room. 

Len's eyes slowly took in the cozy interior, walls plastered in science posters with one movie poster peeling lonesomely on the wardrobe. A desk was pushed comfortably beneath the window, a laptop and a few sheets of paper scattered across the top. In the left corner of the room, against the wall was a queen sized bed, with a small ball of blankets scrunched up in the middle. It was only when the blankets emitted a muffled noise did Len realise that it wasn't just a pile of blankets, but that Barry Allen, hero of central city, was balled up inside them. 

Feeling awkward, Len approached the bed, careful of the bedside table with the Flash suit strewn across it, until he caught sight of a messy head of brown hair sticking out the top. The blankets made the muffled sound again, and Len was shocked to realise that they were sobs. 

Bewildered, Len slid back a step, Barry Allen was crying? Suddenly the blankets shifted, Barry sat up, and then there was no doubt the scarlet speedster was in tears. Len wasn't sure what to do. He wasn't very good at comforting people, his experience was limited to a very young Lisa, and he certainly had no idea what to do when it was quite obvious no one could see him anyway.

"Fuck", Barry groaned, hunching over and scrubbing his eyes, "You fucking idiot".

Len cautiously stepped over to the very end of the bed, ensuring he was as far away from Barry as possible, before sitting down. It didn't go unnoticed to him the way the bed didn't dip or crease in any way, but he tried to ignore it, focussing on the kid in front of him. 

Barry's hands drifted up from his eyes into his hairline, and it didn't escape Len's attention just how hard he was pulling his hair. Len frowned, stupid brat, it wasn't the Flash's fault. It was nobody's fault but his own. Len had made his decision fully conscious of the fact that it would kill him. He made his own choice, probably for the first and only time in his life, and this stupid self-depreciating kid was trying to take that from him.

Len cleared his throat awkwardly, "Hey", he drawled, fully aware that Barry couldn't hear him, "Stop blaming yourself, Kid. It was my decision to get on the Wave rider. It was my decision to save the team and it was my decision to try and be better". He addressed the wall across the room as he spoke, "You've gotta stop trying to take everyone else's decisions onto yourself. You can't save everyone, especially not the bad guy".

Len pulled his feet up onto the covers, crossed his legs and shuffled backwards until his shoulders hit the wall. Barry seemed to have stopped crying, Len knew it wasn't because of him, but he couldn't quite bring himself to stop talking just yet. For some reason, despite Barry's inability to hear him or even know he was there, talking to someone who Len could almost pretend was listening loosened the tight feeling of panic in his chest.

Barry lay down, finally stretching out from that ball of misery he'd been curled up in, and stared up at the ceiling. 

Len let his head fall back against the wall, relaxing slowly in the soft lighting, and his hands and feet started to feel a little less cold. He examined his hands, turning them over and staring at his palms. They were just as rough as before, every gun callous and scar littering his skin that he'd died with, but he could have sworn they looked so pale, almost blue. So lifeless. Len curled them into fists.

"I'm sorry Barry", he muttered after a while. He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, he didn't even really know why he was sitting there. For the first time since he'd opened his eyes outside S.T.A.R Labs, Len finally realised that he didn't know what to do. How could he plan when he couldn't interact with anything? What was he going to do with himself in this existence? 

Len was spiralling. Was he just going to watch everyone grow old around him and die? Was he going to see Lisa and Mick die? Was he going to be stuck here forever? 

"It's all going to be ok", it took Len a moment to realise that it had been Barry who'd spoken. He stared at the kid for a moment, who couldn't possibly know Len was there, who'd obviously just been talking to himself, but still, somehow it made Len huff, the smallest of smiles lifting the corners of his lips. Stupid brat talking to himself.

Len watched for a while as Barry's breathing slowed down, as his whole world slowly condensed into the moment. In and out. In and out. 

Who would have known that the simple sound of someone else breathing when you couldn't would be soothing?

*****

Len didn't sleep. He wasn't tired, wasn't able to drift off into that enviable oblivion that seemed to embrace Barry so readily, so he just sat at the end of Barry's bed all night, listening to him breathe. He was vaguely aware it should have been creepy, that it probably was creepy, but no one could tell, and it was the best he'd felt since waking; he was selfish enough to want to keep the small semblance of warmth for as long as he could.

Rays of sunlight crept across the floor hypnotically as morning slowly established itself, and eventually, Barry started to snuffle slightly as he woke up. A sluggish hand crept out from underneath the pile of blankets to fumble for a phone from the nightstand, and Len snorted as Barry's quite astounding bed head and sleepy eyes made an appearance as the man leant up to check his screen.

The clock on the wall displayed an unforgiving 7.30, and Barry let out a slow groan before swinging his legs out from under the covers and onto the floor. Len's eyes subconsciously swept across the younger man's body as he stood up and stretched, lingering on the tight material stretched across his ass before Len caught himself and dragged his eyes away. Definitely toeing the line of creepy.

As Barry shuffled across the room and towards what Len assumed was the shower, Len made his way downstairs. His lack of tiredness and inability to rest were a bit of a bummer. Len huffed a mirthless laugh and sat down at the West's family breakfast table. So ghosts couldn't sleep then.

He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do that day. He didn't want to see Lisa, couldn't quite bring himself to watch her mourning when he was powerless to help in any way whatsoever, and he didn't exactly have anywhere else to go. 

A gust of air ruffled everything apart from Len as Barry suddenly appeared in front of the fridge and began to rummage inside, his hands a blur. Len watched curiously as a blur of red and brown sped around one of the kitchen counters, in a few seconds a huge, heaping plate of sandwiches landed on the other side of the table, quickly followed by a still tired looking, but perhaps slightly happier Barry Allen. 

The bedhead was more tamed, but the sleepiness still fogged the younger man's eyes as he squared up to his breakfast. Len didn't blame him, he would've looked twice at any meal that size. Almost six slices of bread were heaped upon with cheese, ham, what looked suspiciously like cream cheese and chorizo. Len stared with a horrified fascination as Barry devoured the massive sandwich in the space of two minutes, even pausing at the cupboard to grab a breakfast bar when he'd finished.

Len frowned suspiciously at the skinny frame of his nemesis. That kid should be 300 pounds within all reason, he had no right to retain a perfect six pack and ass eating like that. Life was sometimes just unfair. Caught up in his envy, Len only realised Barry was leaving when the kid shucked on a coat and pulled a brown messenger bag across his shoulders at by the front door. 

Len stood up to follow before he quite knew what he was doing. He was halfway across the room before he even realised that he'd simply decided to follow the Scarlett speedster to work without actually considering why. Barry opened the door, stepped through, and Len decided that he had nothing better to do anyway.

*****

Police work was so awfully boring.

Len groaned quietly, pushing away from the desk he'd been lounging on to stretch his back reflexively before he realised it did nothing for him. 

Barry was standing against one of the other benches, half bent over a rack of bright green tubes peering into them attentively. Len's eyebrows crinkled when the kid hummed and wrote something on a pad of paper, as if the liquid had actually done anything in the last half an hour.

Len moved over to the window, trying to just take steps instead of sliding. It was difficult, but if he concentrated he found that his feet met the solid ground and let him walk. Being careful to take steps towards Barry's bench, Len reached out at one of the test tubes, grimacing as his hand slipped straight through. He took a calming few seconds, before opening his eyes to try again. This time, his hand met the glass, the pads of his fingers spreading out tentatively across the smooth surface. Len pushed, gently at first, but steadily increasing in force until he was gritting his teeth against the strain. Nothing. The tube didn't move an inch. 

Len closed his eyes, focusing on the cool awareness of glass beneath his fingers. His eyes flicked open in surprise as the smooth surface began to slide away from his touch. Barry finished pulling the tube from the rack and paused to hold it up o the light. Seemingly satisfied, the oblivious Flash turned around to pour the contents away. Len huffed.

"Mr Allen", a voice called out from behind them, and both Barry and Len twisted around to catch sight of Captain Singh with his arms crossed at the door to the lab. "Would you care to explain why I didn't have the finger print analysis for the Scott case on my desk this morning?".

Barry cringed slightly, "Oh! Uh, yeah- I have it just around here Singh- Uh, Captain", he rummaged around at a few pieces of crumpled paper on is desk, before grasping a particularly scrunched up page in the air triumphantly. Barry faltered slightly at the expression on Singh's face, "I'll bring it down to you in, uh, two seconds". 

Singh pressed his mouth together in a resigned irritation, "I want it yesterday, Allen. Bring it down".

Barry nodded quickly, "Yup, Mm-hmm. No problem, Captain".

Captain Singh gave a quick glance around the room, eyes passing right over the spot Len was standing in, before giving Barry a look, and walking away. Barry sagged against the desk in relief, and Len stared after the Captain's back, vaguely amused. He could almost see the look on Singh's face if he knew that Leonard Snart was currently lounging against one of his CSI's workbenches. Len could count the small victories.

Len watched as Barry sighed down at the crumpled piece of paper, before Barry vanished and the lab was filled with lightning and frantically fluttering pieces of paper. Not two seconds later, Barry Allen was again standing in the same spot and before, this time with a substantially filled in sheet of smoothed out paper. Len's eyes caught the way Barry swept back down his hair, before striding out the door, most likely towards Singh's office. 

Hands resting in his parka's pockets, Len strolled after him. Pupils carefully sweeping around the precinct, Len followed Barry to a nicely placed office with a perfect view of the downstairs CCPD. Len held back as Barry apologised to Singh, more interested in analysing the officers that were currently milling around the ground floor. Out of the seventeen men occupying the main area, Len could only count three he hadn't Sen before, and out of the remaining fourteen, he could count six who he knew were dirty. He snorted, he didn't like the police all too much, aside from their tendency to shoot at him on sight, they were all so self righteous and blind.

The hum of Barry's voice increased in volume, "Thanks Sir, yeah, I'm heading off. See you tomorrow". Singh called out a goodbye, and Barry strode out towards the exit of the precinct. Thank god, Len rolled his eyes skyward, maybe Flash would finally do something interesting. He wasn't disappointed when Barry gave the corridor to the exit a quick left and right glance, before the kid dashed into a room and reemerged a few seconds later in full Flash attire.

Len's feet slid forward a few meters in anticipation. Maybe it was finally time for Barry to do something exiting. The scarlet speedster unknowingly matched Len's grin for a split second, before racing off in a flash of yellow. Finally. Len smirked and allowed his body to speed after him. It was rather good odds on a bet as to where the kid was going.

Len slid into S.T.A.R Labs reasonably quickly, he could guess a few minutes after Barry considering the way he was currently engaged in a heated discussion with Caitlin Snow. 

"Barry, I don't care what you say, it's just too dangerous! Do you even realise who will be there? Who could turn up!", the last time Len had seen the doctor this worked up was at Ferris Air.

"I'm going, Caitlin. I know it's going to be dangerous, but I want to go", Barry faltered, "I have to". Caitlin softened at the slight hunch to the speedster's shoulders, "Barry-".

"Please don't try to stop me", Barry's eyes were pleading in a way Len hadn't seen before. Len grimaced. The kid was too soft, for someone in the Flash's line of business it fared better to be harder. He was amazed that the world hadn't chewed Barry Allen up and spat him out yet. As Len flexed and curled his freezing fingers, he could have sworn they felt stiffer, more frozen than before.

Caitlin sighed in defeat, "Go, before Cisco turns up and tells me what a terrible friend I am for letting you do this".

Barry's smile of gratitude didn't quite meet his eyes, but neither of them said anything as Caitlin turned to a computer and brought up a computer program. "Cisco's going to regret showing me how to do this", she muttered lowly.

Barry's finger tapped a blur against his thigh as the program loaded, holding himself perfectly still when a cheerful beep sounded from the monitor. 

"St Francis Church, 7 blocks from the station. Barry, be-", a whoosh of air and the resultant scattering of papers replaced the scarlet speedster, "Careful", Caitlin finished resignedly. 

Len followed as quickly as he could. As the buildings flowed by, and the start of dusk settled in over Central City, the streets he was travelling down became more and more familiar. He mulled over the address again. St Francis Church. That was in his territory, or what had been his territory. If a meta human was attacking someone in his section of town he should really be the one out there, gun whirring, icing whatever bastard thought it was smart to mess with a Snart. 

Len's lips drew back in a silent snarl. Even if he couldn't do anything like this, he would take great pleasure in watching the Flash beating the meta into the ground. 

He finally skidded to a stop outside the church, muscles tight in anticipation of what he would find, but to his confusion and disappointment, it seemed awfully quiet, with the Flash hovering outside the church doors uncertainly.

Len walked up to the entrance of the church, next to Barry, and placed a hand against the door. He could hear the slow music of an organ seeping through the wood, and suddenly he didn't want to go inside. Barry seemed to be fighting the same internal war, eyes flickering with doubt and what looked suspiciously like fear, but in a way Len wasn't able to, gritted his teeth, steadied himself, and pushed the doors open.

It was like something from a nightmare. Len stood in the doorway to the church next to Barry, staring in at the sea of awfully familiar faces staring back towards them both. Faces filled with a mixture of sadness, acceptance and discomfort that suddenly switching to anger, shock and confusion. Len knew them all.

His brain scanned across the group. The church wasn't full, but there was a substantial mass of people congregated within the pews. Len's eyes stuttered across some of the faces at random; Mrs Phu from the Vietnamese takeaway restaurant not two blocks from his apartment, the kind Indian couple who ran the Bakery on his road, a neighbour he took the time to greet when he bumped into him, Mick and Lisa. 

Swallowing past the thick lump in he bottom of his throat, Len forced himself to look at the front of the church, behind the pastor, where a plain black casket rimmed in silver lay raised amongst a bed of white lilies. Len didn't need to be a genius to know what this was.

Mick snarled, standing up before he was grabbed by the slender hand of Lisa, "Let him see what he's done, Mick". Huffing loudly, Mick sat down, and the whole church turned back to face the pastor, with the exception of a few curious glances over people's shoulders. 

Barry moved to an empty pew close to the back of the room, and Len numbly sat next to him. The pastor droned on about how all people can be forgiven by the lord and other bullshit, but Len couldn't concentrate. He couldn't keep his eyes off the sleek black coffin at the front of the room, empty, of course, because the real him was blown to smithereens and scattered through time and space.

Len only realised that the pastor had finished his spiel when he heard a far more familiar voice begin to talk. Lisa was standing up at the front of the church, putting on a brave face, her pose strong and reassuring despite the glint of sadness in her eyes. Len could have sworn his heart stuttered in his chest when he realised what she was doing. 

She was taking over. Len couldn't think of any other person he would rather place in charge of his territory.

Mick was standing behind her, arms crossed against his chest as he met the eyes of every individual in the room, making sure there was no doubt on the whereabouts of his allegiance. Lisa, however, stared right at Len. 

Len knew she wasn't really staring at him, that her eyes were fixed on the Flash next to him, but at that distance it wasn't hard to pretend. 

"Firstly, I'd like to thank all of you for coming today on such short notice. I appreciate it and I know Lenny would too", Len only caught the slight tremor in her voice when saying his name because he knew her so well.

"It wasn't fair what happened to him", she continued, "It wasn't fair that he was taken so quickly from us, that we were all left alone and unprotected for so long in such a dangerous time. A time that was thrust upon us by an egotistical man with that selfishly thought he was able to protect everyone from the tidal wave of monsters that he brought here. He was not the one who stood between you and the monsters. Len was". Lisa's eyes hardened and there wasn't a sound in the hall when she spoke. Len smiled, she was going to be so good at this, better than him.

"But we are not helpless. What would Leonard say if he saw us shrink away from the world in his absence? I know. I'm sure you know as well. You are not going to wake up each day fearing meta human freaks and gangs anymore, I won't allow it", Len was so proud. So, so proud. Barry shivered next to him, vibrating for such a short second Len wouldn't have believed he'd seen it had he not been sat next to him.

"I'm taking over", Lisa's voice didn't tremble once, and there wasn't a sound of dissent anywhere in the church. "I loved my brother, and I will continue to love him with all my heart until the day I die, but I am not like him", Lisa's eyes narrowed sharply as she stared Barry down. "I am not forgiving, I am no hero, and I am not a good person. If I ever, ever see the Flash in this part of town ever again, if I even hear that he came within a mile of my borders, I will come for him".

Though Barry didn't shrink into his seat like any lesser man would've under a gaze of such hatred from Lisa, there was no denying the slope to his shoulders. People were looking this time, staring at Barry with no lack of hatred, and Lisa let the mood in the church ferment for a few moments before she continued.

"I don't need to punish you for his death, Flash. I don't need to because every day until the day you die,the first thing you will see when you wake up and last thing before you close your eyes at night is going to be his face. That guilt is never going to leave you. That is your reward for being a hero". 

Barry stood up, just standing there for a few seconds as the room greedily drank in the frame of a man they had feared and looked up to so weighed upon. Nobody said anything as the Flash walked to the end of his pew and to the doors. The room remained silent as Barry paused at the exit, turned his head, and spoke, "Leonard Snart was a good man forced to do bad things by the world he lived in. I will never excuse his actions against this city, but I will not stand here and tell you he deserved what happened to him. I have to live with what happened to him". 

Barry turned around completely, eyes fixed on Lisa's, "I'm so sorry, Lisa", and suddenly the back of the church was empty. 

Len sat alone in the empty pew for the remainder of the funeral, eyes as hard as the ice that laced his insides.

*****

Len didn't know why he went back to the Flash's family house that night. He knew he didn't want to stay with Lisa and Mick when it was so obvious how much his decision to give up his life was affecting them. He didn't want to be alone, and for some stupid reason, Len didn't feel alone when it was just him and the kid talking to themselves in Barry's room last night. It was the only time he didn't feel completely alone. 

So that was how Leonard Snart found himself with his legs crossed on the end of Barry Allen's queen sized mattress for the second consecutive night. The kid hadn't been crying when Len walked in, and Len tried to ignore the red eyes and slightly damp pillow, because the thought of one person being so selfless as to seriously blame themselves for the death of someone like Len made it hard to hate the Flash. This stupid fucking kid.

"Why can't you just be the ignorant hero it's so easy to pretend you are?", Len snarled, eyes dark, "You're so fucking naive as to think you can protect everyone that you don't realise that just by existing you put everyone in more danger than they ever were? For every one bad guy you put away three more flock to to replace him and challenge you".

Hard, cold ice bubbled up inside him, Len could barely swallow it down.

"You don't hear about the gangs that flood into Central at an ever increasing pace since you arrived. You don't get to see the wrecked businesses and homes and families and bodies that those people leave in their wake because your so busy dealing with the meta human bullshit you created to fight for a sense of purpose!". Len slammed his hand down onto the bedpost and was so fucking grateful his hand didn't slide right through. 

Len turned agonised eyes to face the oblivious Barry, "Then you go and blame yourself for something so fucking stupid as one death a thousand million light years away and remind me that you're a better person than I could ever hope to be". 

Len finally let out the last of the air he'd inhaled, and took a little while to get himself back under control. He was shocked, he never lost his cool, not like that and especially not in front of his nemesis. Len found himself stupidly grateful that the brat had no idea he was there, and tried to lift his hand from the bedpost where he'd left it. He frowned when it didn't immediately come off, numb and stuck to the wood. Len glanced over at it, eyes widening when he realised what had happened. 

Delicately covering his hand and spreading glistening clear tendrils down the bedpost, was a sheet of ice.


End file.
